Port St. Lucie Mayor Patricia Christensen resigns after arrest

President of Port St. Lucie police union says group is hopeful that it can stop the layoff of police officers slated to take effect on Friday.

Port St. Lucie resident says filing criminal complaint against ex-mayor Patricia Christensen was a long process.

Mayor Patricia Christensen's resignation letter.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Port St. Lucie Mayor Patricia Christensen resigned from office Wednesday after being arrested and charged with one count of official misconduct for falsification of an official record or document and one count of disposition of surplus funds by a candidate, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement news release.

Christensen turned herself in at the St. Lucie County Jail. She was booked at 10:48 a.m. and released at 11:30 a.m. after posting a bail bond of $3,000. The State Attorney's Office, 19th Judicial Circuit, will prosecute the case and the FDLE investigation is ongoing, the FDLE said in a news release.

Assistant State Attorney Lev Evans said even before the arrest was made, Christensen was negotiating a possible plea deal with prosecutors.

"Nothing definite is in the works yet," Evans said Wednesday afternoon. "However, one of our demands has been that she immediately resign as mayor; and if she's done that, I can only assume that she's wanting to go forward with a plea agreement."

Official misconduct is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in the state Department of Corrections and a $5,000 fine; disposition of surplus funds by a candidate is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine.

Evans said "almost all" of Chrstensen's alleged illegal activities took place more than two years ago, which means the two-year filing period under the Florida campaign finance laws has expired.

"If she went to trial under an affirmative defense," Evans said, "she could beat the misdemeanor charge (of disposition of surplus funds by a candidate) because it's filed under the campaign finance laws."

Evans said prosecutors "had to look outside the box for a charge that fit into the fact pattern of what she did."

That's how they came up with the official misconduct charge, he said, which is not under the campaign finance law and so is still within the statute of limitations."

Christensen is not required to attend a first appearance hearing, where a judge typically makes sure recent arrestees are advised of their rights; and she can waive her right to appear at her arraignment, a hearing at which defendants are officially charged.

In that letter Christensen said: "It has been an honor and a privilege serving the residents of the city of Port St. Lucie for the past 20 years, in the capacities of councilwoman, vice mayor and mayor. I am very proud of the many good things that have been accomplished over these years, and I hope that our city will continue to grow and prosper in the future."

Neither Christensen nor her attorney, Rickey Farrell, could be reached for comment Wednesday.

During a 2 p.m. news conference Wednesday in the lobby of City Hall, Vice Mayor Jack Kelly, with City Councilman Chris Cooper and Councilwoman Linda Bartz by his side, remained optimistic and refused to answer questions centered on Christensen's character.

Kelly will assume the duties of mayor until a newly elected mayor is sworn in Nov. 15.

"The city is in good hands, and it's going to keep on running the way it has and things will be fine," he said. "We'll have a new mayor in nine weeks and hopefully we can concentrate on some positive things around here. It's been a firestorm for us, but we'll get through this, put it behind us and we'll move on, and things will run well. I can promise you."

Kelly said the City Council would likely discuss during its 7 p.m. meeting Monday whether it wants to appoint someone to fill Kelly's seat while he takes over the mayor's duties. Monday's meeting also is the final public hearing for the council to approve the budget and property tax rate.

City spokesman Ed Cunningham said the council does not legally have to appoint a new council member. He said it can continue to do business with four people or can appoint an additional member to bring it back to a five-member council. He also said Kelly would not be considered the mayor or even an "acting mayor." Kelly would still remain the vice mayor but would run the meetings and fulfill mayoral duties.

Kelly called Christensen's arrest unfortunate and said he had no prior knowledge of it.

"I don't know what the charges are or what she did," Kelly said. "That has not been shared with us. We have an experienced City Council. We only have nine weeks until we have a new mayor, and the boat is afloat and it's going to sail away, just like it always has. The city will go on. The services will be the same. Everything will go on as it was. I will run the meetings until we can get a new mayor."

City Councilwoman Linda Bartz said she was stunned by Christensen's arrest.

However, "I don't think this has anything to do with how she's performed her job as mayor," Bartz said. "What she's done as mayor has not been questioned. I think overall we just have to wait and see how the process goes through and look for the outcome."

City Councilman Chris Cooper was at a loss for words.

"I'm still processing the whole thing," Cooper said. "I'm amazed. I just don't have any words for it."

Prior to the 2 p.m. news conference, the International Union of Police Associations, which along with the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association, called for the mayor's resignation last month after she criticized the police department in a private e-mail to 70 people, held a news conference in front of the Police Department.

The police unions and Christensen have been publicly feuding over proposed police cuts, which she supported. On Friday, 24 police officers and three civilian employees are slated to lose their jobs.

Robert Loupe, the union's vice president, said the union is hopeful Christensen's resignation will have some impact on whether the 24 officers get to keep their jobs.

"With the animosity from the e-mail, there was definitely some kind of ax to grind," Loupe said. "We tried to do this (get Christensen to resign) before when the e-mail came out and we feel at that point she should have been standing down and giving up her position as mayor. We'd rather deal with people who don't have a grudge against the Police Department, and we're hopeful now the public will stand behind us."

Kelly, who's been opposed to the police cuts, said right now the consensus to lay off officers hasn't changed.

"They're in negotiations, and they'll be talking (Thursday) and Friday," he said. "That'll go on. Hopefully, things will turn out the best that they can. It's a tough year. We just don't have the funds for anything we want to do, and of course, I have a difference of opinion than the rest of the council on that. There's always ways. You just have to keep trying."

According to FDLE, Christensen deposited about $3,800 from campaign funds into her personal account. The FDLE began investigating Christensen, 53, in October after receiving a complaint that Christensen misappropriated campaign money, and the law enforcement agency found that on at least two occasions, Christensen wrote a check to herself from campaign funds.

In June 2006, Christensen wrote a check to herself for $2,500 from campaign funds and deposited the check into a personal account. After the 2006 election, she withdrew $1,318 of money remaining in the campaign account and put it in her personal account, according to the release.

According to the FDLE, Christensen admitted to investigators she falsified her campaign treasurer report and investigators believe she used the money to pay personal bills and expenses.

Last year, the Florida Elections Commission ordered Christensen and her husband, Frans, who acted as her campaign treasurer, to pay a $5,000 fine for failing to report $1,500 in campaign contributions from developers during her 2006 mayoral campaign.

The findings stemmed from a complaint filed by Port St. Lucie resident Kerry Cochell. The commission found Christensen and her husband guilty of 10 violations of state statute election code and campaign financing laws.

Former mayoral candidate Victoria Huggins said after the case was closed, she asked for the case files from the state. The files contained Christensen's bank records from her campaign account.

Huggins said examining those records led her to file a criminal complaint against Christensen because they involved numerous additional discrepancies. The case files also contained a report from an elections commission investigator detailing the investigator's findings.

In that report, the investigator said Christensen misreported several other campaign contributions in addition to what Cochell alleged in his complaint. However, the investigator noted she couldn't proceed with her findings because the additional potential violations were not alleged in the Cochell complaint.

Namely, Christensen reported lending her campaign $2,500. However, only a $500 contribution or loan check was deposited into the campaign bank account, the investigator noted.

"Numerous additional contributions were found that were deposited into the campaign bank account that were not reported," the investigator wrote. "In the bank records there was an excessive cash contribution; there was an excessive check contribution in the bank records; and it appears that contributions were not timely deposited into the campaign bank account. However, because these potential violations were not alleged in the complaint, I did not further investigate this information."

In the Huggins' complaint to the state Attorney General's Office, she notes several instances where Christensen allegedly reported receiving checks for certain amounts and then failed to deposit them into her campaign bank account.

In numerous other instances, Christensen reported, for example, receiving a $250 check from a contributor and then depositing it as a $100 check into her campaign bank account, according to Huggins' complaint.

In another example, Christensen reported receiving a check from Assistant City Manager Greg Oravec for $100 but later deposited the check in the amount of $150.

Christensen allegedly reported receiving a check from former City Center developer George de Guardiola for $250 but deposited the check as $500.

Huggins reports finding more than $10,000 in contributions that were unaccounted for in Christensen's campaign report. She said there might be more because she couldn't verify actual cash contributions.

Huggins also noted several examples in her complaint in which Christensen reported writing checks for expenditures to places like The Home Depot, Party City, Sam's Club, Walmart, Walgreens and Publix, though no records showed checks were issued to those stores.

Huggins' complaint reported more than 400 instances in which she raised questions about Christensen's contributions. She said she believes many of the violations in her complaint will not be prosecuted if found to be true because the time frame to report the alleged violations has reached the state's two-year statute of limitations. Huggins said the focus of the investigation is centered on the $2,500 loan discrepancy.

"I not only believe Ms. Christensen breached the public's trust throughout her campaign, but I believe she acted willfully, made false statements, concealed facts, misrepresented facts and submitted false documentation after her certification of these documents to the state of Florida," Huggins wrote in her complaint.

Huggins issued a statement Wednesday saying her goal had been simply to get Christensen to resign and that she only filed the complaint with the Attorney General's Office after first asking Christensen to resign.

"It is a sad day in the history of the city of Port St. Lucie," Huggins wrote in a statement. "Most do not understand that my actions, over the past three years, were not a vendetta against the mayor."

Huggins' statement said many of the issues raised in her complaint could not be acted upon because the statute of limitations had expired.

"What is truly the shame in all of this is that it took investigators within various departments at the state level to prosecute and/or move forward on something of this magnitude," she said. "Had they moved quicker, the statute of limitations would not have expired on some of the other counts.

"After three years, it has come to a final end for one. It is time for the healing to begin and allow this city to move forward."

Former Port St. Lucie Mayor Bob Minsky, who was mayor from 1992-1998 and 2000-2006, cautioned that these are just charges right now. Christensen has not been proven guilty.

"The thing that shocks me is there's so many inconsistencies in the (campaign) reporting," he said. "As for the accusations of impropriety that haven't been proven yet, I wouldn't comment on that. You have to understand I still have a loyalty to the office of mayor. I feel bad that the office itself is being dragged through this."

Staff writer Tyler Treadway contributed to this report.

UNDER FIRE

Port St. Lucie Mayor Patricia Christensen's controversial history:

June 2009: Port St. Lucie Mayor Patricia Christensen and her campaign treasurer, her husband, Frans Christensen, sign agreement to pay $5,000 in fines to the Florida Elections Commission for campaign violations stemming from her 2006 mayoral campaign. The couple found in violation for failing to report $1,500 worth of contributions from developers.

September 2009: Christensen announces she won't seek re-election in 2010.

August 2010: Police arrest Christensen's son, Erik, on misdemeanor charges he gave alcohol to a 15-year-old girl.

August 2010: The International Union of Police Associations and the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association call for Christensen's resignation after she sent a personal email to more than 70 people implying her son's arrest was a result of a police vendetta against her for supporting police cuts.

August 2010: Christensen makes statement she won't resign.

September 21: The State Attorney's Office confirms an ongoing criminal investigation involving Christensen. Former mayoral candidate Victoria Huggins claims investigation has to do with her criminal complaint against Christensen.

Sept. 22: Christensen is arrested and charged with one count of official misconduct for falsification of an official record or document and one count of disposition of surplus funds by a candidate. She resigns from office.

ARRESTED

When: Christensen turned herself in and was booked at 10:48 a.m. at the St. Lucie County Jail. She was released at 11:30 a.m. after posting a $3,000 bond.

What: Christensen was charged with two counts, including official misconduct, a third-degree felony. She also was charged with disposition of surplus funds by a candidate, a first-degree misdemeanor.